Joanna Gruesome is actually a five-piece noise pop band from Cardiff, Wales — the members all met in an anger management group and got thrown together to compose a song to perform for all the other participants, and even though they hated each other’s guts at first, they couldn’t deny that they made pretty rad music together. On September 10, they’ll be releasing their debut album Weird Sister via Slumberland in the US and Fortuna POP! in Europe. The band spent about a month hanging out at a freaky hotel in Brighton called The Hell House, where other occupants would experiment with occult rituals and Ouija boards, and many of the songs on Weird Sister emerged as a distraction from all of that.

This is the first time they’ve recorded in a real studio, and they got some production help from MJ of Hookworms. They’ve premiered a single called “Secret Surprises,” which apparently describes a blade fight with a mental illness that’s decided to manifest physically. It’s real noisy and a little bit punk and you can stream it below:

The Polaris Prize is an award given out yearly to the best Canadian album. This award honors artistic merit, free from commercial and social influences. It is a wonderful honor to be bestowed the Polaris Prize and blah blah blah. That’s all fine and well, but what you “artiste” types might be forgetting is that whoever wins the Polaris Prize gets a cool $30,000. What a chunk of change! Makes me wanna forge some Canadian citizenship papers and write a critically acclaimed record, know what I mean?

For a few unlucky chumps, the chance for all that sweet, sweet money has been grasped away from them, right when they were drooling for it the most. Pitchfork reports that the award’s longlist has been cut into a shortlist, leaving the likes of Majical Cloudz, AC Newman, Mac DeMarco, and Daphni disappointed and poor. Maybe next time, buds. Standing triumphant (and potentially rich as all hell) are the following: Purity Ring, Godspeed You! Black Emperor, Metz, Metric, Tegan and Sara, Colin Stetson, Young Galaxy, Zaki Ibrahim, A Tribe Called Red, and Whitehorse. Check out the shortlist and longlist here.

The soon-to-be very rich winner will be announced at The Polaris Gala (a.k.a. GIANT CHECK CEREMONY) in Toronto on September 23. Last year, the award went to Feist for Metals, a properly named record, as the now extremely wealthy singer wears only clothing made out of gold.

Steve Hauschildt is giving up on music. Well, no, surely that’s not the case, but it’s hard to resist the supposition following the relatively short lifespan of his Gneiss Things label, the tragic and personally tear-inducing disbandment of kosmische trio Emeralds, and now, the announcement of a two-disc anthology of “rare and unreleased solo works” recorded between 2005 and 2012. The following is not an accurate portrayal of Hauschildt’s mindset, but consider the analogy of a bitter relationship breakup. Assuming a lack of violent propensities, what’s the common, or at least cliché thing to do? Gather everything you have that reminds you of your former partner and… chuck it off a highway overpass, causing mile-long pileups, as drivers then stumble out of their cars to look for the culprit. Valentine’s Day Mix 2013… what havoc you’ve wreaked!

Or throw everything in the garbage, whatever.

The point being, you release everything, literally and figuratively, to gain a sense of closure and to tie things off. Is that what Hauschildt’s doing here with S/H, or has abundance beckoned the release of these tracks? Encouragement from one’s peers? Let’s not try and predict the future with these pieces from the past. While his work with Emeralds may have necessarily been a tad camouflaged given the style of music, this anthology is bound to give comprehensive insight into the guy who clearly pulled more than his creative weight as a member of the group. Henceforth, if he wants to pursue a life of kidnapping children and holding them hostage inside futuristic laser beam force fields, it’s ultimately out of our hands. Due September 16 on Editions Mego.

Life is suffocatingly full of choices. Life is a Chuck E. Cheese’s: we’re little kids, and choices are the balls in the ball pit, covering us entirely so our moms will leave us behind and the giant mouse will adopt us into his merry band of misfits. This weekend in particular is ripe with choices, especially for all you folks in and around Chicago. Indeed, one of the most important choices of your life is just standing there, waiting for you to get in there and decide all over it.

Starting this evening (July 19), there are two whole music festivals going on in Chicago. One is put on by the up-and-coming music site Pitch Fork Dot Com, the other by Chicago record label Rotted Tooth Recordings. Titled Rotted Tooth Fest, the event is a sort of de facto replacement for the Bitchpork festival, which, for the past few years, was also on the same weekend as Pitch Fork Dot Com’s festival. Bitchpork, though a bastion of clever wordplay, will not be returning this year.

Rotted Tooth Fest features acts such as Wolf Eyes, Bitchin’ Bajas, Oozing Wound, Sewn Leather, and a multitude of other sweaty, noisy folks who are looking to massage your aching free will if you’ll just let them. (One of the other bands on the bill is Rectal Hygienics﻿, which is a name I wish I had called dibs on earlier.)

The event kicks off tonight at 9 PM, and you can visit the Rotted Tooth Recordings website for tickets. In fact, the only way to get the address for the event is to buy a ticket (they’ll send you the info via email). So unless you’re in the mood to wander around Chicago shouting “Rectal Hygienics﻿!!,” I’d say pull the choice trigger and buy a ticket ASAP.

Austin-based electronica dude Run DMT is both the cough syrup-addled lovechild of a wizard in a 1980s video game and the opening montage of Harmony Korine’s Spring Breakers. The man behind Run DMT is a fella named John Robbins, who’s releasing on July 22 a self-titled record, the follow-up to last year’s Union of Opposites, on his very own 4th Wall Records. The lead single is called “Shaman Juice,” because… well, of course it is. There’s just no way this track is NOT called “Shaman Juice.”

Now, apparently, in this crazy world of ours, there is another artist called Run DMT — this is not the lo-fi hazy summer pop dude. This is the SPRING BREAK FOREVVVVVER dude. Robbins has remixed everyone from The Who to Major Lazer and is currently on the Warped Tour.

The heat descended heavily across the land. The townspeople, clad all in black and wearing very fashionable sunglasses, languished in the sun, praying for relief, for an autumnal breeze, for a cool drink from the deep well of minor-key rock ‘n’ roll music. Then, what, ho? A trumpet sounded from the deepest reaches of the internet town square. An official announcement from the castle of Sacred Bones!

And so it was, gentlefolk of the not-so-merry kingdom of Postpunklandia, that a declaration rang out across the land: Crystal Stilts have a new album called Nature Noir, and it’s out September 17 via — naturally — Sacred Bones! Listen to first single “Star Crawl” NOW:

Formed in 2003, in the magical land known as New York City, Crystal Stilts is comprised of master songsmiths Brad Hargett (vocals), JB Townsend (guitar), Andy Adler (bass), Keegan Cooke (drums), and Kyle Forester (keyboards). Nature Noir is the band’s third studio LP, following up 2011’s In Love With Oblivion (TMT Review). To celebrate, they’ll be saddling their finest unicorns and touring this great nation of ours with Deerhunter in the fall.